


Same Blood

by waldorph



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Apocalypse, Multi, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-01
Updated: 2008-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Same Blood

Sam sighs, scrubs his face, looks at his reflection in the mirror.

Never a dull moment with Dean around. He's _missed_ this. Forgot how it was to laugh on a hunt, even if it was gallows humor.

Forgot how good it was to argue about stupid things like whether or not there was a God when, oh yeah, ghosts are trying to rip their ribcages apart.

He's _missed_ Dean, and while Ruby made him less lonely…she was a poor substitute.

Course, now she's taken off, but hey.

He's got Dean.

"I still think you're taking all of this too well. Where's the argument? Where's the skepticism?" Dean grumbles. "I tell you freakin' Lucifer's about to rise up, there are seals, angels are dyin' on the field, and you shrug and agree? Dude, come on."

"Dean. I'm not the one who's having a crisis of faith, here. Though I've gotta give your angel credit. He's accomplished in three days what Dad, Pastor Jim, and I couldn't- he's got you thinking about the fact that maybe there's a good side."

Dean throws a towel at him and goes into the kitchen.

That's another thing Sam missed. Dean over a stove making pancakes or eggs or whatever he can find in the fridge. He'd never admit it, but he's a good cook. One of them had to be, and it wasn't going to be Dad.

"What're you making?" he calls.

"Nothin' for you!" Dean shouts back. "You didn't bring me any pie!"

"I want four pancakes!" Sam informs him.

"Dean cookin'?" Bobby asks as he staggers downstairs, fixing his hat over damp hair. "Missed that boy."

Sam grins at him. "Yeah."

"Would you knock that off?" Dean's hissing. "Oh, sorry, should I salute?"

Sam frowns, peers into the kitchen. Dean's…talking to himself. Angrily.

"Sammy. . . Yeah." He's not looking up from the bowl he's mixing, but Sam recognizes that tight line of his shoulders: it's the way Dean got when Dad was bawling him out, usually when Dean had done something stupid or was taking Sam's side. Dean hasn't looked that way since before Sam went to Stanford. Dean's uncomfortable and threatened and not sure how to fix things.

He pauses, turns to his right. "Yeah. You keep sayin' that." He's got that wrecked look—the one he gets when people want to save him. The look that says he just doesn't understand, and he's so…so lost that Sam wants to burst into the room.

He turns his shoulder—just a twitch of movement, completely involuntary-, and then the over shirt slides down off his shoulder, and his T-shirt sleeve gets pulled up to reveal one of those awful burns.

"Gonna push me back?" Dean demands, hard, chin lifted and the corners of his mouth tight. "That what you really came here for? Tell me it's all a mistake? Didn't mean to grab me?"

Sam starts, and Bobby's hand clamps down on his shoulder, squeezing a warning.

There's a long silence—the angel must be talking, but neither Bobby nor Sam can hear it, and Dean's eyes track it coming closer, and then fall to the floor, eyebrows knitting in confusion. The bowl of pancake batter falls, and something catches it, and Dean takes it with trembling hands.

*

Sam doesn't bring it up. Bobby doesn't bring it up. Sam fumes, silently, because if that thing, that _angel_ thinks that he can just yank Dean back and forth—_damnit_ he thought maybe they'd caught a break! Maybe they didn't have to worry about this, that maybe they could just take this—this was just one of those good things that happen sometimes! Dean _deserves_ that!

He slams out of the convenience store, and then heads over to the bakery, picking up a whole apple pie. Payback for the one he forgot. The world owes Dean pie.

Plus, the money's not Sam's. It's Mr. Earl W. Hunnicutt's.

Sam opens the door and is about to shout that he has pie when he hears Dean talking (which wouldn't be unusual, but Bobby's out doing a survey of the other hunters, trying to tell them to get ready, and maybe seeing Ellen).

"I just don't get it—so what, why don't you guys bring in God. I mean, the demons want Lucifer."

"We are not looking to the end of the world. For its imperfection, it is created in the Lord's image." The voice is archaic, but it's warm, earnest. Terrible in Sam's ears.

"That image is getting more and more freakish. Tell me God isn't a globe. I gotta tell you, I'd have a problem with that." Dean, Sam reflects, is possibly the only person who would be blasphemous with an angel _intentionally_.

"His form, as mine, is difficult for you to witness."

"Right. I remember. So. Lose anyone today? One of—yours?" Dean sounds…uncertain. Sympathetic.

"Today was a good day for us. We lost none."

Dean's chuckle is warm. "Awesome. Deserves a beer."

"Dean—I'm back! Got pie," Sam calls, because hey, he should see the angel, right?

"Pie. Awesome, man," Dean enthuses, turning with bright smile.

"Who were you talking to?"

"No one."

Sam nods. Figures he's got Ruby—he can give Dean this.

Plus. He doesn't want Dean to figure that one out yet. He doesn't dwell on it.

*

Two weeks later Dean gets thrown into some rapids.

Actually, he gets shot in the shoulder, loses his footing, falls off a cliff, and disappears into the rapids while Sam is still reloading.

By the time Sam fishes him out, breathing hard and terrified (_no, no, no, please, I just got him back, please, please_), the water around Dean is reddish brown. "Dean, Dean, come on, man, come on, not cool, wake up."

"Tell me you got that sonovabitch," Dean manages. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, the corners of his mouth are slack and his fingers aren't quite managing to grip Sam's jacket.

"Yeah, yeah, Dean, I got him." Shit, they're so far out, and he—he tries to fish out his cellphone, call Bobby, call 911, call _anyone_ because this is so not acceptable. Not even _close_.

"I hate vampires." It's almost too quiet to hear, but not quite.

"We don't have great luck with them," Sam agrees, and Dean makes that helpless grunt/groan/shout of pain when Sam presses his hand against the bleeding wound.

"What was the point of dragging you out if you are determined to die?" that voice inquires, a little nasal, half reproachful, a quarter curious, and a quarter fond.

Sam…didn't expect him to be beautiful. He takes Dean easily from Sam like Dean weighs nothing, and Dean's head turns towards him.

"Fightin' the good fight," he manages, corner of his mouth jerking up in a pathetic attempt to smirk.

The angel presses his index finger to Dean's forehead, and Dean sags gently against his shoulder. Sam hunches back, watching, torn between protective concern and paralytic horror.

Apparently he can handle demons no problem, but confront him with an angel and he can't move.

"You threatened to send him back to hell."

"I do not have the blessing of time. Dean is a warrior for the cause, one of our soldiers." His brow is furrowed as he examines Dean's face, even though his hand is under the collar of Dean's shirt, somewhere over the shoulder.

"But he's Dean," Sam agrees in grim understanding. Dean always accused Sam and Dad of being stubborn. One of the only things they'd been able to agree on was that Dean, when he dug in his heels, was impossible to budge. "You didn't have to threaten him with that."

"He understands I will not."

"Even though you—"

"This does not involve you, Samuel."

"He's my brother."

"He is. And God has chosen him."

"Where's his say?" Sam grinds out.

"You will let him go?"

"He won't leave me." This is a certainty. The angel nods once, eyes serious.

"Free will. Will you let him go?" His head tilts. Sam stares at him. "You are free with making his decisions for him. He will stay with you. I cannot have him. You balk at God choosing Dean, even though it meant that I raised him from perdition. You expect him to go where you go. Do you go where he goes? You have chosen him as much as God has, Samuel."

Sam flinches when Dean is transferred back to his arms.

"Try to take better care of him."

Sam stares at Dean's face until he wakes up.

 

*

It feels like moments later, but it may be years.

The Boy King stands, Lucifer lose in his true visage, Azazel's quest finished by Lilith (who did not, perhaps, expect her reward to be banishment to the depths of the pit). His queen at his side, consort, advisor, generalissima.

"They're here," Ruby murmurs, tilting her chin towards the bright light that would be sunrise, were it not coming from the north.

"I see them," Sam agrees, and all of Hell flexes when he tilts his head back and observes the field. This space, he thinks, was maybe Russia. Or Texas. Possibly Australia.

"Sammy," Dean murmurs wryly. Sam can't read Dean anymore: it's as though to reclaim Hell he had to lose Dean, and somewhere along the line that became acceptable. Dean looks good like this. Leading an army, glowing somehow, shadows of wings gracing his back. God's champion. Lucifer remembers him that way. God's champion. 2000 years ago God's champion had only to be pacifistic, no warrior. They chose well, with Dean. Sam can no longer read Dean, but knows enough of him to be wary.

"Dean."

Dean Winchester, not just Heaven's soldier, but God's incarnation on Earth. His vessel. His general. A modern-day Jesus. And at his side is his advisor (consort) (_winner, won Dean, rival_), standing and observing Hell. Behind them, somewhere, the souls of John and Mary Winchester, Bobby, Pastor Jim, Ellen, Ash, Jo, the Witnesses, the host of Hunters all lurk, ready for a word from their own version of the Boy King.

"And Castiel," Sam drawls, because its easier to focus on him than the calm in Dean's green eyes. "Sure you won't fall? Don't feel tempted?" Sam can smell him on Dean, smell Dean on him. They are Alexander and Hephaistion.

"Knock it off, Sam," Dean snorts. He looks at Sam for a long moment, and Hell screams behind Sam's eyes, eager to _taste, taste, rip him up, eat, feed, ours_—Hell remembers with longing the soul of Dean Winchester. Dean smiles like he knows, and shakes his head. "I forgive you," he remarks casually. "We forgive you. Thought you should know. Before you start. An' I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Sammy."

Sam snarls, because that's too rich, he's heard it before—since the beginning of everything, he has been _forgiven_. Patronizing bastards. Forgiven as long as he stays in the lines, obeys, doesn't question. Minds his place. Sam can have the _world_—all worlds, all universes, all of creation, all of it. It is all there, and he and he alone is unafraid to taste it all.

"Sic'em boys," Ruby murmurs sing-song, and Hell flushes forward. Heaven rises.

"Let's kick some ass."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Same Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3180371) by [dodificus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodificus/pseuds/dodificus)




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